Shepherd's Flat Wind Farm ApprovedThe Portland Business Journal brings us the news that Oregon has given permitting approval to what will become the world’s largest onshore wind farm: the Shepherd’s Flat Wind Farm. Developed by the Sacramento, California firm Caithness Shepherds Flat LLC, the planned facility will consist of 303 wind turbines with a combined installed capacity of 909 megawatts. It will be located on private land five miles southeast of Arlington. No word on when construction is scheduled to begin or when the wind farm may come online.

While individually still a drop in the vast bucket of overall U.S. electrical demand, this development is of such a scale—the Shepherd’s Flat Wind Farm would slightly more than double Oregon’s wind capacity—that the phrase ‘world’s largest’ doesn’t seem ridiculous.

The current U.S. record holder for largest single wind farm is the 765 MW Horse Hollow wind farm, in Texas. Both of these, as well as every other wind farm in the world, are likely to be dwarfed by T. Boone Pickens’ planned 4,000 MW wind farm, scheduled to be completed by 2014.